


Clothed With Light

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Before Mairon Leaves Almarin, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 04:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11570340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: Their backs rested against the mountainside, the jutting outcrop of speckled granite and weather-worn stone providing a lip on the side of the cliff that held them up as a balcony surveying a stage. They reclined on a thick cloak of damask velvet amongst silver platters of ripe fruit and sweet nectar as they gazed down at the yawning valley beneath them, once deep and verdant with the limbs of clustered trees. The fragrant pines and hemlock, the older cluster of oak and bare maple, and all the bits of low-growing heather clothed the sides of the mighty Iron Mountains in their absinthe shade, glossy and thick- all save for one mighty peak and the basin below.***Melkor shows Mairon one of His creations.





	Clothed With Light

What Will You Say Tonight, Poor Solitary Soul

(Poem Excerpt by Charles Baudelaire)

***

What will you say tonight, poor solitary soul,

What will you say, my heart, heart once so withered,

To the kindest, dearest the fairest of women,

Whose divine glance suddenly revived you?

 

\--We shall try our pride in singing her praises:

There is nothing sweeter than to do her bidding;

Her spiritual flesh has the fragrance of angels,

And when she looks upon us, we are clothed with light.

***

Their backs rested against the mountainside, the jutting outcrop of speckled granite and weather-worn stone providing a lip on the side of the cliff that held them up as a balcony surveying a stage. They reclined on a thick cloak of damask velvet amongst silver platters of ripe fruit and sweet nectar as they gazed down at the yawning valley beneath them, once deep and verdant with the limbs of clustered trees. The fragrant pines and hemlock, the older cluster of oak and bare maple, and all the bits of low-growing heather clothed the sides of the mighty Iron Mountains in their absinthe shade, glossy and thick- all save for one mighty peak and the basin below.

The valley below them, a chasm once filled with such hardy wildlife and a small lake of crystal water, alike to a mirror, was now brightly agleam with a bubbling river of inflamed scarlet and copper and a searing white flame, and the thick liquid trailed languorously down the steep crags. Arda’s holy ichor steamed and hissed as it met the icy touch of water, which instantly boiled at the magma’s infernal touch, creating a spectacle of wispy steam and angry froth framed only by the remnants of olvar, a decadent evergreen fading in splendor to the molten beauty of fire.

Far away, tucked on the flat seat of rock on the cliffside of a parallel mountain they watch the tumultuous, arcane power of Arda as it poured its lifeblood from deep within the womb of its crust, rent onto its jagged flesh to make lurid geysers and streams of illustrious vermillion. Yet this gushing wound would never kill, would never drain, and the smoke and fire that poured from the gaping crater, rolling clouds of dense ash only evoked awe in the pair. Here the darkness rolled viscous from the crown of the mountain, and it settled not far from top in the air to bruise the sky that was a never ceasing light, the Two Lamps never waning. And under this murky dusk, the light from the depths of the earth was made more beautiful contrasting against the backdrop of vivid black.

And the streams of thawed rock were an imperial ruby in mimicry of the Maia’s russet hair, of his carnelian eyes. And the cooling purples on cold blackened rock caked with soot, hardening to a shiny black, was mimicry of the Vala’s raven hair, of His jet eyes. And one in front of the other- aside one another- the velveteen grey of smoke and the comets streaking fire irradiantly was more terrific in their contrast. The volcano was made more glorious than the embers the Smith-Maia stoked and harnessed in his smithy, more enrapturing than the flames in their smelter as they caressed his bronzed skin and tempered metal. And the wind carried with it a smell more familiar to spaces between tresses of the Dark Vala than to that of his forge-apron.

But this wasn’t the birth of the Maia’s own creation he watched, it was Melkor’s, and the Vala gazed at the volcano’s violent burst lovingly, as His own child in its destructive opulence remade the innermost caverns of Arda’s mantle and forged them anew, as it destroyed the green of forest and the clear pool of crystal but left behind a fertile ash that whispered thoughts of spring. The wroth of foam that hemmed the water, the scent of pine enkindled, the intense heat that radiated back down at them from the blanket of pitch smoke above was _magnificent._

Mairon turned slightly then, to study Melkor’s expression, following the flight of thick, dark lashes on His sculpted ivory cheek that held reverence; in the fine crinkles of worry and fear, anger and malice, that were smoothed when looking at His own will made reality in the matter of the earth; in the curled corners of His lips, like thin rose quartz, that held the vision in delight. There Mairon recognized the memory of such an expression in his own features when he had caught his own reflection in polished mithril and saw it there in the metal the same contentedness of a perfect creation.

Though Melkor beheld the destruction of His mountain’s igneous fit as it streamed carmine and celestine whites and pale yellows into the needles of the trees and lit their thick canopies on fire, consumed their gnarled roots and sunk deep into the burned soil, and as the magma collected in the valley and boiled off the lake in a veil of pearly steam- despite His creation raining ash and shadow and fire- He did not love it for its mockery, for its murder of Yavanna’s beloved trees. Of the eruption He loved its light which He could not have, and its chaos that was a reflection on His own soul, the smoke and the rumble an echo of a Discord sung long ago.

The volcanoes were dying off in a whisper, once so plentiful and so active. Their tomb of liquid matter was pacified, their soaring peaks smoothed and grown over with grass, the wound in the plate of Arda’s crust stitched and mended by Aulë, and thus, by Mairon as well. _“Such a niche for them on Arda there is not,”_ Aulë had told him, _“Save the occasional, which is to remind us what Arda once was. They art perilous to the Children, of whom wouldst surely choke on the ash and burn on the molten rock, and whose clouds wouldst block the sacred light of the Valar.”_

And what love Aulë had for them was begrudgingly overwritten by Manwë’s- which is Eru’s- design, Yavanna and Her sister’s concerns, and by Nienna’s laments for the scars of the earth. But the love of their primordial rage and their dangerous allure never left Melkor’s Fëa, not since the beginning when He first laid eyes upon the inflamed disk of Arda, clothed in sublime conflagration and brilliant against the Void of the night, strewn with veins of glittering gold and softly-spun silver and crystallized with studs of gems: the beauty of the Earth uncontrolled, splendent and untamed in its infancy.

And did Melkor not have a right to make things most wondrous strange on Arda, just as the other Valar? Nay: for it was not in the latter parts of the Great Music. Just as Mairon himself had little time of his own to make what he himself designed, Melkor could not stray from the Theme that laid itself out even before Arda’s conception. It seemed to him a hopeless doom- vain almost- to build mountains where there should be valleys, to make such bold eruptions in a valley meant only for a lake. But Melkor, Mairon knew, would never stop attempting to make things in which He thought were fair or mighty, even if it meant indebting His power to them.

Deep in these labyrinthine thoughts, Melkor turned to him, and the smile didn’t fade from the corners of His flushed lips, nor the glint in His jet eyes, or the polished carrara of His skin, unburdened for a moment by His typical gloomy brooding. For Melkor thought secretly that the volcano was much alike to the Maia that sat astride Him on the rock-cliff. For the thin trailing streams that burst in the sky were his curled locks, the stone of the Iron Mountains his sinopia skin, dappled with gold.

“What dost thou think of such a thing?” Melkor asked. “Is it not like the embers in thy Master’s forges, but made more magnificent, more glorious? Are its inebriating flames not akin to thee, O Golden Spirit, and its song? I prithee, what dost thou think?”

Mairon smiled softly, full lips parting, watching as Melkor picked up from the platter set on their shed velvet cloaks a bit of honeycomb that he had brought from Yavanna’s gardens. Though Ainur did not need to eat, Mairon discovered the Vala’s weakness for sweet things, and honey by far earned His favor. Melkor waited impatiently for His answer, as was typical, and when He caught a golden bead of honey with His tongue that had trembled from His lip before it threatened to fall, Mairon turned back to the volcano with a blush that struggled to appear on dusky skin.

The runnels of of lava had yet to cease, and they pooled like glimmering jewels of smoothed jasper, spangled sunstone, and gleaming corundum, cooling to faint amethyst and azurite that shared a tincture with Melkor’s Fëa, with His skin which was ever cold and shaded.

Mairon pondered the question a moment, resting his back on the stone side of the cliff more firmly, and he realized then just how close together they were. He did not eat, though there were many samples he had snuck from Almarin, which foods that had been made that Melkor had yet to try, forbidden as He was. The Dark Vala shifted closer, so close that His hair like the obsidian below fell almost across Mairon’s lap, waved softly in the breeze like it was made of weightless shade and not the fine silken threads of hair. He could almost smell the honey from His lips, the ash in the folds of their robes, the scent of wet earth and burning pine.

Moments passed by, and yet Melkor did not lose hope of answer, for Mairon was smiling broadly until dimples formed on his freckled cheeks, charming and youthful. And such a thing was a rarity and was to be treasured, for Mairon did not let the compliment get ignored in the Vala’s question.

“It is true to me that it is more mighty than the simple embers of Aulë’s smelters, and its beauty recalls the time before when the Ainur first came bidden to Arda. And of its beauty it is undoubtable, but-” Mairon answered coyly, “-Hearken to the noise of its sonorous thunder beneath the earth, the way it rumbles and the noise of its very ebb and flow. Look at the cooling of the flame on its sides and at the mountain’s feet; is it not more alike to thee, overall?”

Melkor smiled, and He placed the comb down, forgotten, and canted more towards Mairon so that His hair slipped away like a wave of polished hematite, but His body was brought closer; close enough that flakes of snow that hung about Melkor’s form fell and melted on the heat of Mairon’s skin.

“Devious spirit! Canst never accept mine praise! Must thou deflect worthy commendment with flattery of thine own, sweeter than this honey?”

Mairon smirked slyly, for Melkor said it in lighthearted jest, and he had long grown accustomed to the Vala’s teasings.

“I would not need to, as much, if thou held thine own honeyed tongue.”

Melkor grinned, wolfishly, and watched the Maia observe the volcano again, satisfied with the playful quip. But Mairon continued his serious musings on creation and the preservation of such ancient things as volcanoes, or the iron structures Melkor wrought from the earth, or the frigid snow and boiling heat which He had fashioned, and even the twisted olvar and kelvar that He had designed. And, mayhaps because their relationship was not so much as a Vala and Maia as more a contented (dare he think- joyous!) companionship, Mairon let his thoughts unchecked from his soul.

“Tell _me,_ O Dark Spirit,” Mairon asked, “What music hath made such might, for I hath not heard such a tune.”

Yet it seemed immediately to Mairon that this was somehow a wrong thing to say, though Melkor never demanded the Maia speak to Him as anything but an equal and had never once asked him to hold his tongue for impropriety, He appeared almost stricken. Melkor’s gaze, sharp and absorbent, dulled a moment, His Fëa pausing in its movements. Mairon watched a certain veiled barrier over His thoughts fall before they could be gathered, could sense a vulnerability never before revealed. The Dark Vala’s soul flinched, and He smiled in vain attempt to hide it, but it did not quite reach His eyes.

Quickly, as if to recover some unknown slight, Mairon spoke his apology: “It wast not mine intention to pry,” he tried to mend, but was cut off by Melkor’s cool hand clasping his wrist loosely, as if to stop the flow of words mid-tumble. That the words did, and he swallowed them, watching Melkor intently, all thoughts of music and the volcano forgotten.

His dark brow was creased and Mairon mourned secretly the smoothness of carefree, and His lips no longer curled upwards like the petals of a tea-rose and instead they were pressed in grim thought like a bud. His jet eyes searched Mairon’s face, the sharp slope of his nose, the pursing of his coral lips, the furrow of one arched brow in worry. He paused on his eyes, chthonic eyes that matched the background of explosive magma, but also contained within them the sweet balm of honey even in their most vibrant inferno- there, in its ridges, the calmness of amber ambrosia.

“Thou didst not offend,” Melkor murmured, and for a moment, He paused again in mesmerized thought.

Then, barely over the roaring of the volcano, Mairon heard His voice once more.

“It is a song only from the beginning of the Great Music, and its notes are seldom found later on, and then only in fear and hatred. But its music is cherished to me, and it plays a stronger role in mine own theme, in mine Discord. . .”

He broke off softly, gazed back at the fire and smoke and ash, and Mairon caught traces of a shame long smothered under secret anger and hidden sorrow, like the pine needles burned and buried under the magma, seemingly destroyed but its essence still held in the liquid rock. At once the Maia felt the intense desire to hear such music, and Melkor began once more.

“I wilt sing it,” He said, and His eyes were glittering unlight and smoothed with reflections of cool lavender, the ice fractals clinging to His cool skin. “I wilt sing it gladly for thee, if only thee were to sing also.”

Mairon’s eyes widened, his mouth agape to protest. Melkor had not once asked him to sing- no one had- and in truth, Mairon was not wont to, for he was troubled to sing save in his forge, and something about his music, Mairon thought, was always _wrong,_ out of tune or off-kilter.

But Melkor smiled in assurance: “It is not a difficult theme, and it is powerful in the beginning, full of mighty crescendos and organs, viols and trumpets, and much chanting. But in the end it is soft and sleepy, like the dying of embers.”

As Mairon looked out he could see the cascading rivers of red cooling, could see the jonquil comets of flame were lessened and the smoke, not so much billowing from the crater as were its remnants hanging thickly in the air. Mairon turned back to Him and looked down at the snow greying with the falling ash, smiled softly at the memory of Melkor’s face as He venerated His creation in all its chaotic splendor.

The choice, Mairon found, was easy, and long after the magma hardened and cooled into basalt and obsidian, and after the cavern at its top lay in uneasy slumber after its tumult, the sounds of a volcano’s eruption could still be heard and yet, not a sight to be seen. And if one had a very discerning ear, from this distant rumbling there were two voices, one that spoke of fire and the other of smoke and ash.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'd love to know what you think!  
> ***


End file.
